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No. 36. 






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A 

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..jiL ANDliL. 




lDREAM<^raRWOMEJi 



-BY- 



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Alfred Tennyson, 



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NEW YORK: 

Clark <fe Maynard, Publishj:rs, 
. 734 Broadway, 



L 



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ENGLISH CLASSICS. 



The Two Voices 



A Deeam of Faie Womeist. 



By ALFRED TENNYSON. 




WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, 

By HIRAM CORSON, M.A., LL.D., 

PROFESSOK OF ANGLO-SAXON AND ENGLISH LITBB^WHJEE IN 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY. y^ • kf. ^ K" 



^ /{-y^^^QO^^ ^i^hT/'^i^-- 




NEW YORK 

Clark & Maynard, Publishers, 

734 Broadway. 






Copyright, 

1882, 
By CLARK & MAYNARD. 



O I c^-"^ i 



BlOGEAPHICAL 

AND 

Genekal Introduction. 

Alfred Tennyson was boru August 5th, 1809, at Somersby, 
a hamlet iu Lincolnshire, England, of which, and of a neighbor- 
ing parish, his father Dr. George Clayton Tennyson, was 
rector. The poet's mother was Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. 
Stephen Fytche, vicar of Louth. Alfred was the third of seven 
sons— Frederick, Charles, Alfred, Edward, Horatio, Arthur, 
and Septimus. A daughter, Cecilia, became the wife of Edmuud 
Law Lushington, long professor of Greek in Glasgow Univer- 
sity. Whether there were other daughters, the biographies of 
the poet do not mention. 

Tennyson's career as a poet dates back as far as 1827, in which 
year, he being then but eighteen years of age, he published 
anonymously, in connection with his brother Charles (who was 
only thirteen months his senior, having been born July 4th, 
1808), a small volume, entitled " Poems by Two Brothers." 
The Preface, which is dated March, 1827, states that the poems 
contained in the volume '' were written from the ages of fifteen 
to eighteen, not conjointly but individually ; which may ac- 
count for the diiTereuce of style and matter." 

In 1828, or early in 1829, these two brothers entered Trinity 
College, Cambridge, where their eldest brother, Frederick, had 
already ented-ed. At the Cambridge Commencement in 1829, 
Alfred took the Chancellor's gold medal, by his poem entitled 
** Timbuctoo." That appears to have been the first year of his 
acquaintance, which soon ripened into an ardent friendship, 
with Aithur Henry Hallam, this friendship, as we learn from 
the xxiid section of " In Memoriam," having been, at Hallam's 
death, of '• four sweet years' " duration. It is an interesting 
fact that H.llam was one of Tennyson's rival competitors for 
the Chancellor's prize. His poem is dated June, 1829. It is 
contained in his " Literary Remains." Among other of Tenny- 



4 BIOGRAPHICAL AKD GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 

son's friends at the University, were John Mitchell Kemble, the 
Anglo-Saxon scholar ; William Henry Brooklield, long an elo- 
quent preacher in London ; James Spedding, the biographer and 
editor of Lord Bacon ; Henry Alford, Dean of Canterbury ; 
Richard Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton), who 
united the poet and the politician, and was the biographer of 
Keats; and Richard Chenevix Trench, who became Dean ot 
Westminster, -in 1856, and Archbishop of Dublin in 1864, A 
brilliant array of College friends ! 

Tennyson's prize poem was published shortly after the Cam- 
bridge Connnencement of 1829, and Avas very favorably noticed 
in the Athememn of July 22, 1829, In it can already be recog- 
nized much of the real Tennyson, There are, indeed, but very 
few poets whose earliest productions exhibit so much of their 
after selves. The real Byron, the most vigorous in his diction 
of all modern poets, hardly appears at all in his " Hours of 
Idleness," which was published when he was about the age 
Tennyson was when " Timbuctoo " was published. 

In 1830, appeared ^* Poems, chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tenny- 
son." In this volume appeared, among others, the poems en- 
titled "Ode to Memory," "The Poet," ''The Poet's Mind," 
"The Deserted House," and "The Sleeping Beauty," which 
were full of promise, and struck keynotes of future works. The 
reviews of the volume mingled praise and blame— the blame 
perhaps being predominant. In 1832 appeared "Poems by 
Alfred Tennyson," among which were included " The Lady of 
Shalott," "The Miller's Daughter," "The Palace of Art," 
"The Lotos Eaters," and "A Dream of Fair Women," all 
showing a great advance in workmanship and a more distinctly 
articulate utterance — many of the poems of the previous 
volumes being rather artist-studies in vowel and melody sug- 
gestiveness. It was reviewed, somewhat facetiously, in the 
Quarterly, July, 1833 (vol. 49, pp. 81-96), by, as Avas generally 
understood, John Gibson Lockhart, the son-in-law of Sir Walter 
Scott, at that time editor of the Quarterly, and in a more ear- 
nest and generous vein, by John Stuart Mill, in the West- 
minster, July, 1835, 

A silence of ten years succeeded the 1832 volume, broken only 
by an occasional contribution of a short poem to some magazine 
or collection. In 1842 appeared "Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 
in two volumes," containing selections from the volumes of 
1830 and 1832, and many new poems, among which were " Ulys- 



BIOGRAPHICAL AND GEKERAL INTRODUCTION. 5 

ses," "Love and Duty," ''The Talking Oak," "Godiva," and 
the remarkable poems of " The Two Voices " and " The Vision 
of Sin." The volumes were most enthusiastically received, and 
Tennyson took at once his place as England's great poet. A 
second edition followed in 1843, a third in 1845, a fourth in 1846, 
and a fifth in 1848. Then came "The Princess: A Medley,'' 
^ 1847; a second edition, 1848; "In Memoriam," 1850, three edi- 
I tions appearing in the same year. 

The poet was married June 13, 1850, to Emily, daughter of 
Henry Sellwood, Esq., and niece of Sir John Franklin, of Arctic- 
expedition fame. Wordsworth had died April 23rd of that year, 
and the laureateship was vacant. After some opposition, the 
chief coming from the Athemeum, which advocated the claims 
! of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Tennyson received the appoint- 
I ment, his "In Memoriam," which had appeared a short time 
( befoie, and which at once laid hold of so many hearts, contrib- 
I uting much, no doubt, to the final decision. His presentation 
to the queen took place at Buckingham Palace, March 6, 1851, 
I and in the same month appeared the seventh edition of the 
\ Poems, with an introductory poem " To the Queen," in which 
I he pays a high tribute to his predecessor in the laureateship : 
I " Victoria, since 3'our royal grace 

' To one of less desert allows 

' This laurel greener from the brows 

» Of him that uttered nothing base ; " . . 

, To do much more than note the titles of his principal works 
I since he became Poet Laureate, the prescribed limit of this 
j sketch will not allow. In 1855 appeared " Maud," which, though 
', it met with great disapprobation and but stinted praise, is, per- 
i haps, one of his greatest poems. In July, 1859, the first of the 
I "Idylls of the King" appeared, namely, "Enid," "Vivien," 
I "Elaine," and "Guinevere," which were at once great favo- 
; rites with all readers of the poet; in August, 1864, "Enoch 
J Arden," with which were published "Aylmer's Field," "Sea 
1 Dreams," "The Grandmother," and "The Northern Farmer ;" 
I in December, 1869, four additional "Idylls," under the title, 
I "The Holy Grail and Other Poems," namely, "The Coming of 
j Arthur," "The Holy Grail," "Pelleas and Ettare," and "The 
^ Passing of Arthur," of which forty thousand copies were ordered 
in advance ; in December, 1871, in the Contemporary Review, 
"The Last Tournament;" in 1872, "Gareth and Lynette ;" in 



6 BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 

1875, ''Queen Mary : a Drama;" in 1877, ''Harold : a Drama;" 
in 1880, " Ballails and Other Poems." 

Tennj-son's muse has been productive of a body of lyric, 
idyllic, metaphysical, and narrative or descriptive poetry, the 
choicest, rarest, daintiest, and of the most exquisite workman- 
ship of any that the century has to show. In a strictly dramatic 
direction he can hardly be said to have been successful. His > 
"Queen ISIary " is but little short of a failure as a drama, and [ 
his "Harold " but a partial success. "With action proper he has 
shown but little sympathy, and in the domain of vicarious 
thinking and feeling-, iu which Robert Browning is so iire-enii- 
nent, but little ability. But no one who is well acquainted 
with all the best poetry of the nineteenth century, will hesitate to 
pronounce him facUe prmcep^ in the domain of the lyric and 
i(l3ilic ; and in these departments of poetry he has developed a 
style at once individual and, in an artistic point of view, almost 
"faultily faultless " — a style which may be traced from his ear- 
liest efforts up to the most complete perfection of his latest 
poetical works. 

The splendid poetry he has given to the world has been the 
product of the most patient elaboration. No English poet, with 
the exception of Milton, Wordsworth, and the Brownings, ever 
worked with a deeper sense of the divine mission of poetry than^ 
Tennyson has worked. And he lias worked faithfully, earnestly, 
and conscientiously to realize the ideal with which he appears 
to have been early possessed. To this ideal he gave expression 
in two of his early poems, entitled " The Poet " and " The Poet's 
Mind :" and in another of his early poems, "The Lady of Sha- 
lott," is mystically shadowed forth the relations which poetic 
genius should sustain to the world for Avhose spiritual redemp- 
tion it labors, and the fatal consequences of its being seduced 
by the world's temptations— the lust of the flesh, and the lust of 
the eyes, and the pride of life. 

Great thinkers and writers owe their power among men, not 
necessarily so much to a wide range of ideas, or to the origi- 
nality of their ideas, as to the intense vitality which they are 
able to impart to some one comprehensive, fructifying idea, 
with which, through constitution and the circumstances of their 
times, they have become possessed. It is only when a man is , 
really possessed with an idea (that is, if it doesn't run away ; 
with him) that he can express it with a quickening power, and ' 
ring all possible changes upon it. i 



BIOGRAPHICAL AXD GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 7 

What may be said to be the dominant idea, and the one most 
vitalized, in the poetry of Alfred Tennyson ? It is easily noted. 
It glints forth everywhere in his poetry. It is, that the com- 
plete man must be a well-poised duality of the active and the 
p:issive or receptive ; must unite with an "all-subtilizing intel- 
•leet " an "all-comprehensive tenderness"; must "gain in 
sweetness and in moral height, nor lose the wrestling thews 
that throw the world." We have the elements of his ideal man 
presented to us in the 108th section of "In Memoriam," which 
is descriptive of his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam : — 

" Heart affluence in discursive talk 

From household fountains never dry ; 
The critic clearness of an eye, 
That saw thro' all the Muses' walk ; 

" Seraphic intellect and force 

To seize and throw the doubts of man ; 
Impassioned logic, which outran 
The hearer in its fiery course ; 

*' High nature amorous of the good, * 
But touch'd with no ascetic gloom ; 
And passion pure in snowy bloom 
Thro' all the years of April blood ; 

" A love of freedom rarely felt, 
Of freedom in her regal seat 
Of England : not the school-boy heat, 
The blind hysterics of the Celt ; 

" And manhood fused with female grace 
In such a sort, the child would twine 
A trustful hand, unask'd, in thine, 
And find his comfort in thy face ; 

" All these have been, and thee mine eyes 
Have look'd on : if they look'd in vain, 
My shame is greater who remain, 
Nor let thy wisdom make me wise." 

Tennyson's genius, as is very distinctly shown by his writings, 
has been trained on its intellectual side, by the sceptical philo- 
sophy of the age — a philosophy, as it appears, much discussed 
by a select body of students at Cambridge University, of which 



8 BIOGRAPHICAL AlfD GENERAL IKTRODUCTION. 

he aud Arthur Henry Halhim were at the time, prominent mem- 
bers. In the 86tli section of "In Memoriam," there is an allusion 
to these discussions, and to the part taken in them by his friend, 
whom he calls '' the master bowman " who " would cleave the 
mark." To this philosophy Tennyson has applied an "all- 
subtilizing intellect," and has translated it into the poetical 
concrete, with a i-are artistic skill, and more than that, has sub- 
jected it to the spiritual instincts and apperceptions of the 
feminine side of his nature, and made it vassal to a larger faith. 

Sara Coleridge, in her Introduction toher father's " BiogrAphia 
Literaria," writes "What mere speculative rea.son cannot oblige 
us to receive, the moral and spiritual within us may. This is 
the doctrine of the ' Aids to Reflection.' " And this, too, is a 
cardinal doctrine of Tennyson's poetry, especially of his greatest 
poem, the " In Memoriam," and of one of the greatest of his 
minor poems, here presented, " The Two Voices." The central 
Idea of this latter poem is, that the power to feel, not the power 
to think, is the safeguard of faith, and hope, and spiritual 
health. 

In the 119th section of "In Memoriam " he says : — 

" I trust I have not Avasted breath ; 
I think we are not wholly brain, 
Magnetic mockeries ; not in vain. 
Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death ; 

" Not only cunning casts in clay : 

Let Science prove we are, and then 
What matters Science unto men. 
At least to me ? I would not stay." 

And in the 123rd section he says :— 

" If e'er, when faith had falPn asleep, 
I heard a voice, ' Believe no more,' 
And heard an ever-breaking shore 
That tumbled in the Godless deep ; 

" A warmth within the breast would melt 

The freezing- reason's colder part, 

And like a man in wrath the heart 

Stood up and answered, ' I have felt.' " 

It is through purified and exalted sentiment that man is 
linked and harmonized with universal spirituality and thiit he 



FilOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 'J 

divines what he caunot know through the discursive intellect. 
Through the latter he attains to knowledge ; but it is only 
through purified and exalted sentiment, which is intuitive 
(or non-discursive), that he can attain to wisdom. 

In the 113th section of "In Memoriam," the poet presents a 
comparative estimate of Knowledge and Wisdom. Knowledge 

'' cannot fight the fear of death. 
What is she, cut from love and faith, 
But some wild Pallas from the brain of Demons ? 

A higher hand must make her mild, 

If all be not in vain ; and guide 

Her footsteps, moving side by side 
With Wisdom, like the younger child : 

For she is earthly of the mind, 
But Wisdom heavenly of the soul." 



Introductory Remarks 

ON 

''The Two Voices." 

The general subject of the poem is the questiou of the 
melancholy and ovei-coutemplative Hamlet, 

" Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles. 
And by opposing end them ? " 

The poem is, in fact, the Hamlet soliloquy of the 19th 
century. 

Thomas De Quincey, in his Smpiria de Frofimdia, presents 
types of human sorrow. Sisters are they, three in number, as 
are the Graces, the Fates, and the Furies. The youngest of the 
three "is the defier of God. She is also the mother of luna- 
cies, and the suggestress of suicides. Deep lie the roots of her 
power ; but narrow is the nation that she rules. For she can 
approach only those in whom a profound nature has been up- 
heaved by central convulsions ; in whom the heart trembles and 
the brain rocks under conspiracies of tempest from without and 
tempest from within. And her name is 3Iater Tenebrarnm,— 
" Our Lady of Darkness :" and hers is the '' still small voice " 
which speaks io the poem before us. 

A word as to the stanza employed in this poem. No one can 
read, however superficially, the poetry of Tennyson, without 
feeling to some extent, the adaptedness of his rhythms, metres, 
rhyme-schemes, and stanzas, to his theme. 

" Of the soul, the body form doth take." 

What a treasure-house of poetic forms is " Maud !" How the 
ever-varying rhythm, metre, and stanza, correspond with, and 
incarnate, the ever-varying emotional states and moods of the 
speaker ! 

10 



IKTKODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE TWO VOICES. 11 

The orgauie character of the verse of '' In Memoriam " is no less 
remarkable than that of ''Maud." Though the stanza employed 
is not original with the poet, he has made it his own. By the 
rhyme-scheme, the terminal rhyme-emphasis of the stanza is 
weakened, and the stanza is thus adapted to that sweet conti- 
nuity of flow, free from abrupt cheek, demanded by the spirit- 
ualized sorrow which it bears along. Alternate rhyme would 
have wrought an entire change in the tone of the poem-. To be 
assured of this, one should read, aloud, of course, all the stanzas 
whose first and second, or third and fourth, verses admit of 
being transposed without destroying the sense. By such trans- 
position the rhyme is rendered alternate. There are as many as 
ninety-one sucli stanzas, and of these, there are thirteen of which 
either the first and second, or third and fourth, verses may be 
transposed without any serious violence done to the sense. 
They should each be read, first, as they stand in the poem, and 
then with the verses transposed. 

The poem could not have laid hold of so many hearts as it 
has, had the rhymes been alternate, even if the thought had been 
the same. The atmosphere of the poem w^ould not have sei-ved 
so well to conduct the sentiment. 

But what the poet in the ''In Memoriam " aimed to avoid, in 
" The Two Voices " he aimed to secure, namely, a close, empha. 
sized stanza. The poem is in great part a spirited, spicy, 
logomachy — a succession of short epigrammatic arguments, pro 
and con, which 

"like the bee— a thing 
Of little size — have honey and a sting." 

The stanza is composed of three short verses— iambic tetra- 
meter — all rhyming together. The rhyme emphasis on the con- 
cluding verse is accordingly strong, and imparts a very distinct 
Individuality to each and every stanza. 



The Two Voices. 



A STILL small voice spake unto me, 
" Thou art so full of misery, 
Were it not better not to be ? " 

Then to the still small voice I said : 

" Let me not cast in endless shade 5 

What is so wonderfully made." 

To which the voice did urge reply : 

' ' To-day I saw the dragon-fly 

Come from the wells where he did lie. 

"An inner impulse rent the veil 10 

Of his old husk : from head to tail 
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. 

1-6. They who are visited by the Mater Teiietoraruin have lost, 
through sorrow, that spiritual vitality, that healthfuiness of feeling, 
and. as a consequence, that reach of 'intuition, which constitute the 
basis of a living hope and faith in immortality. While the reasoning 
powers may remain in full force, the ties which unite the soul ^ym- 
pathetically with universal spirituality, are more or less sundered, and 
death becomes an "endless shade" and not, as another poet ex- 
presses it. 

"A covered bridge 
Leading from liglit to light, thro' a brief darkness." 

7-21. The tempted one dreads to rush voluntarily into nothingness; 
but the suicidal voice presents, in replv. a fact from the insect world 
which should arsrue for man a higher de'stiiiy But this argument is not 
accepted. The worm which gropes blindly' in the mud may rend the 
veil of his old husk and come forth in a more beautiful form, and fur- 
nished with wings which enable him to soar and revel in the splendor of 
the sunlight— 

"To reigne in the air from th' earth to highest skie, 
To feed on flowers, and weedes of glorious feature; " 
but man, being nature's crownins work, her ultimatum (such is the con- 
clusion of the tempted one's isolated reason, unaided by the intuition 
of healthful feelinu-i, man has completed his destiny, consequently no 
higher form of being awaits him. The transformation of the mud-en- 
gendered worm does not foreshadow his destiny. He reaches his full 
development in this life. 

13 



14 THE TWO VOICES. 

'*He dried his wings: like gauze they grew: 

Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew 

A living flash of light he flew." 15 ^ 

I said, " When first the world began, 
Young Nature thro' five cycles ran, 
And in the sixth she moulded man. 

" She gave him mind, the lordliest 

Proportion, and, above the rest, 20 

Dominion in the head and breast." 

Thereto the silent voice replied : 

" Self-blinded are you by your pride: 

Look up thro' night : the world is wide. 

" This truth within thy mind rehearse, 25 

That in a boundless universe 

Is boundless better, boundless worse. 

" Think you this mould of hopes and fears 

Could find no statelier than his peers 

In yonder hundred million spheres? " 30 

It spake, moreover, in my mind : 
"Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind. 
Yet is there plenty of the kind." 

Then did my response clearer fall : 

"No compound of this earthly ball 35 

Is like another, all in all." 



To which he answered scoflSngly : 
" Good soul! suppose I grant it thee, 
Who'll weep for thy deficiency? " 



33. Yet is there plenty of tlie kind, i.e., in this world : no 
reply is made to the principal declaration otthe voice, namely, " that in 
a boundless universe is boundless better, boundless worse," and that 
man is blinded by his pride in supposing that he is at the-topof the lad- 
der and cannot therefore have a higher destiny. This is allowed to 
drop ; only the additional justification of self-destruction, " yet is there 
plenty of the kind," is replied to. 

• ^^' ^j ■ P*^ tfikes the ground of a peculiar individualitv : that every 
individual being possesses something which no other possesses and 
hence is a necessary element in the world of sense. 

39-42. Tliy deficiency: /^y is objective ; who'll weep for want of 



THE TWO VOICES. 15 

" Or will one beam be less intense, 40 

When thy peculiar difference 

Is cancelled in the world of sense?" 

I would have said, ' ' Thou canst not know, " 
But my full heart, that work'd below, 
Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow. 45 

Again the voice spake unto me : 
*'Thou art so steep'd in misery, 
Surely, 'twere better not to be. 

"Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, 

Nor any train of reason keep : ^ 50 

Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep." 

I said, ' ' The years with change advance : 
If I make dark my countenance, 
I shut my life from happier chance. 

"Some turn this sickness yet might take 55 

Ev'n yet." But he: " What drug can make 
A wither'd palsy cease to shake?" 

I wept, " Tho' I should die, I know 
That ail about, the thorn will blow 
In tufts of rosy-tinted snow ; 60 



thee? Admitting that you have a peculiar iiidividualitj', it is not of 
sufficient importance to' be missed if cancelled. Against this a stand is 
attempted to be made (43-45), but the truth of the last words of the 
tempting voice is loo strongly felt to admit of reply. 

45. Kaiii'd thro' my sight, caused tears to gush from my eyes ; 
sight, used b}' metonomy, for eyes. 

46-48. Use is immediately made of the temporary advantage gained. 

51. But thou wilt weep, ?.t., without weeping. In reply to this, 
the chance of change is urged (49-.5t3). 

53. If I uiake dark luy counteiiniice : "thou changest his 
count, nance aiid sendest iiim awav."'— Job xiv. 20. 

58-72. The tempted one sorrows'that if he should yield and take his 
own life, nature would continue to be gay and cheerful witli sunshine 
aud flowers, and that men would continue to move through novel 
spheres of thought. The voice replies, you will have to die, sooner or 
later, anyhow ;'and to diu now would be a great i:ain to yourself, and 
no loss to the world : for swift souls would none the less sweep the 
trac's of day and night, that is, pass on through their mortal lives to 
their destiny beyond. This leads the tempted one to the consideration 
of human invention and progress, and to the question whether it would 
not be better to await the course of nature and to be, if not a participant, 
at least a witness, of this invention and progress (73-78). 



16 THE TWO VOICES. 

"And men, thro' novel spheres of thought 
Still moving after truth long sought, 
Will learn new things when I am not." 

** Yet," said the secret voice, *' some time 

Sooner or later, will gray prime 65 

Make thy grass hoar with early rime. 

"Not less, swift souls, that yearn for light, 
Rapt after heaven's starry flight. 
Would sweep the tracts of day and night. 

" Not less the bee would range her cells, 70 

The f urzy prickle fire the dells. 
The foxglove cluster dappled bells." 

I said that " all the years invent; 
Each month is various to present 
The world with some development. 75 

" Were this not well, to bide mine hour, 
Tho' watching from a ruiri'd tower 
How grows the day of human power?" 

"The highest mounted mind," he said, 

' ' Still sees the sacred morning spread 80 

The silent summit overhead. 

" Will thirty seasons render plain 
Those lonely lights that still remain. 
Just breaking over land and main? 

" Or make that morn, from his cold crown 85 

And crystal silence creeping down, 
Flood with full daylight glebe and town? 

"Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let 

Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set 

In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet. 90 



77. Rtiin'd toAver : tlic niincd tower is his own shattered selfhood 
from wliich he \\oiild take his outlook upon the world. 



THE TWO VOICES. 17 

'• Thou hast not gained a real height, 
Nor art thou nearer to the light. 
Because the scale is infinite. 

" 'Twere better not to breathe or speak, 

Than cry for strength, remaining weak, 95 

And seem to find, but still to seek. 

''Moreover, but to seem to find 

Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd, 

A healthy frame, a quiet mind." 

I said, ' ' When I am gone away, 100 

* He dared not tarry,' men will say, 
Doing dishonor to my clay." 

" This is more vile," he made reply, 

" To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh. 

Than once from dread of pain to die. 105 

" Sick art thou — a divided will 
Still heaping on the fear of ill 
The fear of men, a coward still. 

*' Do men love thee? Art thou so bound 

To men, that how thy name may sound 110 

Will vex thee lying underground ? 

"The memory of the wither'd leaf 
In endless time is scarce more brief 
Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf. 

" Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust ; 115 

The right ear, that is filled with dust, 
Hears little of the false or just." 

100 eJ sieq. A new reason is here assi<,nied for biding his hour, which 
i8 emphatically responded to by the temptins voice. Yet, in spite of the 
appanintly nneqnal contest with the voice, evidences ;ire ai)i)eariii<j of 
a revivarof earlv feeling and enrhnsiastic :isi)irafions aftt-r s^oodness 
and knowledse. "The stream of feelin<r. rendered staffuanr and impure 
by the obstructions of serrow, is beginning to trickle forth and to be- 
come purified. 



18 THE TWO VOICES. 

'' Hard task, to pluck resolve," I cried, 

" From emptiness and the waste wide 

Of that abyss, or scornful pride ! 12^ 

" Nay— rather yet that I could raise 

One hope that warm'd me in the days , 

While still I yearn'd for human praise. 

' ' When, wide in soul and bold of tongue, 
Among the tents I paused and sung, 125 

The distant battle flash'd and rung. 

*' I sung the joyful Paean clear, 

And, sitting, burnish'd without fear 

The brand, the buckler, and the spear — | 

" Waiting to strive a happy strife, 130 

To war with falsehood to the knife, 

And not to lose the good of life — j 

' ' Some hidden principle to move, ^ 

To put together, part and prove, ^ 

And mete the bounds of hate and love — 135 

" As far as might be, to carve out 
Free space for every human doubt, 
That the whole mind might orb about — 

120. Scoriif€»l Pride ; construe with 1'esolve. 

124-141. The six stanzas embraced in these verses, are a beautiful met- 
aphorical expression of a generous, enthusiastic boyhood and early 
manhood, looking forward to a noble life of thought and action — to a 
warfare with the powers of intellectual and spiritual darkness, and pre- 
paring for that warfare the weapons, offensive and defensive, of great 
truths and great principles, so shaped as to meet with efliciency the 
shifting forms of error. And how grandly the close of such a life is 
pictured in vv. 145-15(5 ! Aid notice the vowel element in vv. 151-156. 

125. Among the tents I jpaused and sung.— The poet, no 
doubt, had his own university life in his mind, and the noble band of 
aspiring young men with whom he was there associated. See Introduc- 
tory Remarks 

126. The distant battle flash'd and rung : life's battle, from 
which he was yet apart, but makinu- i)rcparations to enter. 

127. I sung the joyful Pjiean clear: Pmin is evidently used 
here with reference to its original meaning— a hymn in honor of Apollo. 
See Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon, s.v. Ilaiav, and Skeai's Etymol- 
ogy. Eng. Diet., s.v. Piean. 

129. Brand : a sword ; so named from its brightness. A. S., brin- 
non, to burn. 
138. To move : to exhibit and bring into play. 
137. To carve out free space for every human doubt: 



THE TWO VOICES. 19 

*' To search thro' all I felt or saw, 

The springs of life, the depths of awe, 140 

And reach the law within the law : 

" At least, not rotting like a weed, 
But, having sown some generous seed. 
Fruitful of further thought and deed, 

*' To pass, when Life her light withdraws, 145 

Not void of righteous self-applause. 
Nor in a merely selfish cause— 

*' In some good cause, not in mine own, 

To perish, wept for, honour'd, known. 

And like a warrior overthrown ; . -150 

" Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears. 
When, soil'd with noble dust, he hears 
His country's war-song thrill his ears : 

*' Then dying of a mortal stroke. 

What time the foeman's line is broke, 155 

And all the war is roll'd in smoke." 

" Yea ! " said the voice, " thy dream was good. 
While thou abodest in the bud. 
It was the stirring of the blood. 

" If Nature put not forth her power 160 

About the opening of the flower, 
Who is it that could live an hour ? 

"Then comes the check, the change, the fall. 

Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. 

There is one remedy for all. 165 

*' Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain, 
Link'd month to month with such a chain 
Of knitted purport, all were vain. 



doubt beiiifj essential to the establishment of truth, and even to the vitality 
of faith, it must have the requisite play ; merely to check it, contracts 
the mind's orbit. 

141. The la^v within the law: the law which transcends the 
phenomenal. 



20 THE TWO VOICES. 

" Thou hadst not between death and birth 
Dissolved the riddle of the earth. 170 

So were thy labour little-worth. 

"That men with knowledge merely play'd, 

I told thee — hardly nigher made, 

Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade ; 

"Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, 175 
Named man, may hope some truth to find. 
That bears relation to the mind. 

" For every worm beneath the moon 
Draws different threads, and late and soon 
Spins, toiling out his own cocoon. 180 

"Cry, faint not : either Truth is born 
Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, 
Or in the gateways of the morn. 

"Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope 
Beyond the furthest flights of hope, 185 

Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. 

" Sometimes a little corner shines. 

As over rainy mist inclines 

A gleaming crag with belts of pines. 

170. The riddle of the earth : 

"Full oft the riddle of the painful earth 
Flash'd thro' her as she sat alone," . . . 

Tennyson's Palace of Art 

174. Tho» scaling slow from grade to grade: 2.^., through 
the^Baconian or inductive process. 

177. Tliat bears relatictii to llie mind: i.e., subjective truth, 
the aim of the Kantian system of philosophy ; the reason why, is given 
in a beautifully concrete form in the following stanza : '• For every 
worm," etc. AH knowledge is relative. 

181. Cry, faint not: " faint not " is the object of "cry" ; cry if 
you will, " faint not." but, etc. 

181-183. Kither Truth is born, etc.— i e., wherever born, it is be- 
yond your reach in this life. In the three stanzas which follow (vv. 
184-192), we are presented with a most beautiful concrete embodiment 
of the idea that mnn in this life can enjoy but faint glimpses of truth, 
which are no sooner enjoyed but they are wrapt in clouds and he is 
agam left m darkness. 



THE TWO VOICES. 21 

"I will go forward, sayest thou, 190 

I shall not fail to find her now. 
Look up, the fold is on her brow. 

"If straight thy track, or if oblique, 

Thou know'st not. Shadows thou doest strike. 

Embracing cloud, Ixion-like ; 195 

*' And owning but a little more 
Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, 
Calling thyself a little lower 

"Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl ! 
Why inch by inch to darkness crawl ? 200 

There is one remedy for all." 

" dull, one-sided voice," said I, 
" Wilt thou make everything a lie, 
To flatter me that I may die? 

" I know that age to age succeeds, 205 

Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, 
A dust of systems and of creeds. 

' ' I cannot hide, that some have striven, 

Achieving calm, to whom was given 

The joy that mixes man with Heaven : 210 

"Who, rowing hard against the stream, 
Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, 
And did not dream it was a dream ; 

' ' But heard, by secret transport led, 

Ev'n in the charnels of the dead, 215 

The murmur of the fountain-head — 



195. Ixion-like : See Classical Dictionary. 

198, 19!». A little lower tliaii angels: Psalm viii. 5. 

201. Tliere is one remedy for all: Death, according to the 
temptiii!? voice, is the universal healer. 

204. To flatter niethat I may die : i.e., to instigate me to sui- 
cide bv falsities. . 

208." T cannot lilde: understand "but" or "however, as indi- 
cating an offset to whit is said in the preceding stanza ; I cannot hme, 
or conceal from myself, however, the fact that some hav.' striven, etc. 

211-213. Note the toning imparted to this stanza by the predominance 
of the vowal e. 



22 THE TWO VOICES. 

Which did accomplish their desire, 
Bore and forbore, and did not tire, 
Lilfe Stephen, an unquenched fire. 

" He heeded not reviling tones, 220 

Nor sold his heart to idle moans, 

Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones ; 

" But looking upward, full of grace. 

He pray'd, and from a happy place 

God's glory smote him on the face." 225 

The sullen answer slid betwixt : 

** Not that the grounds of hope were fix'd, 

The elements were kindlier mix'd." 

I said, " I toil beneath the curse, 

But, knowing not the universe, 230 

I fear to slide from bad to worse. 

" And that, in seeking to undo 
One riddle, and to find the true, 
I knit a hundred others new : 

" Or that this anguish fleeting hence, 235 

Unmanacled from bonds of sense, 
Be fix'd and froz'n to permanence : 

" For I go, \^eak from suffering here ; 

Naked I go, and void of cheer : 

What is it that I may not fear? " 240 

219-225. See Acts vi. and vii. 

228. The elements were kindlier mixed: 

"His life was gentle, and XX\c elements 
So mix'd in him, that Nature migiit stand up. 
And say to all the world ' This was a man ! ' '' 

Julius C'<xsar, A. v. S. v. U. 73-75. 

"He was a man 

In whose rich soul the virtues well did suit, 

In whom so mixt the elements all la}' 
That none to one could sovereignty impute ; 
As all did govern, so did all obey.'" 

Bray ton's The Barons'' Wars, Canto 111. 

240. There has been, it will be observed, from the beginning of the 

poem up to this point, a gradual awakening, on the part of the tempted 

one, to a renewed sense of continued existence beyond physical death - 

a sense which we must suppose to have been paralysed by some deep 



THE TWO VOICES. 23 

** Consider well," the voice replied, 

"His face, that two hours since hath died ; 

Wilt thou find passion, pain, or pride? 

" Will he obey when one commands? 

Or answer should one press his hands? 245 

He answers not, nor understands. 

**His palms are folded on his breast : 
There is no other thing express 'd 
But long disquiet merged in rest. 

" His lips are very mild and meek : 250 

Tho' one should smite him on th^ cheek, 
And on the mouth, he will not speak. 

"His little daughter, whose sweet face 

He kiss'd, taking his last embrace, 

Becomes dishonor to her race — 255 

" His sons grow up that bear his name, 
Some grow to honor, some to shame, — 
But he is chill to praise or blame. 



sorrow, or by a quenching of spiritual instincts in mere reasoning, while 
the tempting voice ha^^ been shifting in an opposite direction. He first 
pronounced death an "endless shade." -But his struggle with the voice 
(which voice we must regard as the spontaneous counter-suggestions 
presenting tliemselves to a mind oppressed by doubt and disease, and 
talking their coloring from the subjective states of the man, and changing 
with tiie change of these states), his struggle with the voice has some- 
what awakened and set in motion the springs of his spiritual being; the 
intimations which he had of immortality in his earlier and happier days, 
when the feelings were fresh and l<eenly intuitive, are gradually return- 
ing to him ; but his mind is still in a condition to harbor counter-sug- 
gestions. It has traveled back to a partial belief in immortality, but his 
anguish has yet too intense a vitality t<> allow him to suppose that it will 
be cancelled when freed from the bonds of sense; he fears that he will 
pass into another state of being a stereotyped airony. The counter- 
voice presents to his mind the peaceful features of tliedead, and vaguely 
hints an everlasting sleep ; and matchless is the picture presented of 
mingled beauty and gloom {vv. 250-2«4). 

256-258. " Thou changest his countenance and sendesfhim away. His 
sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not : and they are brought low, 
but he perceiveth it not of Ihem.''— Job xiv. 20. 21. 
258. . . . " He is now at rest : 

And praise and blame fall on his ear alike, 
Now dull in death."— i?0Q'ers' Lines on Byron. 



24 THE TWO VOICES. 

" He will not hear the north-wind rave, 

Nor, moaning, household shelter crave 260 

From winter rains that beat his grave. 

' * High up the vapors fold and swim : 
About him broods the twilight dim : 
The place he knew forgetteth him." 

*' K all be dark, vague voice," I said, 265 

*' These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, 
Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. 

" The sap dries up : the plant declines. 

A deeper tale my heart divines. 

Know I not Death? the outward signs? 270 

" I found him when my years were few ; 
A shadow on the graves I knew, 
And darkness in the village yew. 

* ' From grave to grave the shadow crept : 

In her still place the morning wept : 275 

Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept. 

" The simple senses crowned his head : 
'Omega! thou art Lord,' they said, 
' We find no motion in the dead.' 

"Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, 280 

Should that plain fact, as taught by these, 
Not make him sure that he shall cease ? 



264. "He shall rotnrn no more to his house, neither shall his place 
know him any more."— ./oft vii. 10. See also Jcb xx. 9. 

241-264. The vasfue hint which the voice ])resents, by an ai)peal to the 
senses, that death is an endless and nncoiiscious sleep, carries him from 
the evidence of the simple senses to that " inward evidence, by which 
he doubts ngainst the sense." 

269. A. deeper tale my heart divines : i.e., as to 7nan''s death, 
which appears not unlike the death of the plant. 

275. Ill her still place the uioriilitg wept : A writer in Notes 
and Queries, 4th S. vi. 18, states that is best explained by a reference to 
Psalm civ. 22. But does that explain it ? Or does the line need any ex- 
planation ? 

277-279. That is. to his simple senses, unaided by any inward divina- 
tion. D(!ath was king : they crowned him victor. He was to thera 
Omega, tin- end and Lord of all things. 

281. These : i.e., the simple senses. 



THE TWO VOICES. 25 

" Who forged that other influence, 

That heat of inward evidence, 

By which he doubts against the sense? 285 

*' He owns the fatal gift of eyes, 
That read his spirit blindly wise. 
Not simple as a thing that dies. 

*' Here sits he shaping wings to fly : 

His heart forbodes a mystery : 290 

He names the name Eternity. 

"That type of Perfect in his mind 
In Nature can he nowhere find. 
He sows himself on every wind. 

" He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, 295 

And thro' thick veils to apprehend 
A labor working to an end. 



283. Forged : formed, shaped, wrouffht. 

O purblind race of miserable men. 
How many amon^ us; at this very hour 
Do foT'ge a life-long trouble for ourselves 
By takhig true forlfalse, or false for true. 

Tennyson'' % Enid, 852. 

And See In Memoriam, Ixx. 2. 

286. He owns the fatal gift of eyes : i.e., he has the aift of in- 
ward spiritual eyes, which gilt is "fatal" to the verdict of the simple 
senses in regard to Death. 

287. That read his spirit blindly ^vlse : that declare his spirit 
to be blindly wise ; i.e., his spirit possesses far-reaching intuitions, hut 
through the gross medium of this terrestrial life, it discerns and enjoys 
only imperfect glimpses of its future destiny : it is " blindly wise." 

289. Here sits he shaping wings to fly t The power or faculty 
by which the soul takes delight in whatever stirs its essentially divine 
nature, is allegorized by Plato as the wings of the spirit (to t>}? i|/uyr,s 
nrepaitxa) ; and the growth of these wings, or in modern language, the de- 
velopment of the highest powers of the soul, is promoted by their being 
provided with their only nntural nourishment, viz , the Divine, in its 
threefold manifestation of the Beautifi'l, the Wise, and the Good 
(to 6e ^iiou KaKbu ccfcof dya^bv Kai nai' on toiovtoc). 

Blackits Exposifion of Plato's doct/ine of the Beautiful. 
"The cygnet finds the water : but the man 
Is born in ignorance of his element, 
And feels out blind at first, disorganized 
By sin i' the blood,— his spirit-insiirht dulled 
And crossed by his sensations. Presently 
We feel it quicken in the dark sometimes ; 
Then mark, be reverent, l)e obedient, — 
For those dumb motions of imperfect life 
Are oracles of vital Deity 
Attestmg the hereafter."— J//v*. Browning's Aurora Leigh. 



26 THE TWO VOICES. 

*' The end and the beginning vex 
His reason : many things perplex, 
With motions, checks, and counterchecks. 300 

" He knows a baseness in his blood 

At such strange war with something good, 

He may not do the thing he would. 

" Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn, 

Vast images in glimmering dawn, 305 

Half-shown, are broken and withdrawn . 

"Ah ! sure within him and without, / 

Could his dark wisdom find it out, 
There must be answer to his doubt. 

" But thou canst answer not again. 310 

With thine own weapon art thou slain, 
Or thou wilt answer but in vain. 

"The doubt would rest, I dare not solve. 

In the same circle we revolve. 

Assurance only breeds resolve." 315 

As when a billow, blown against. 

Falls back, the voice with which I fenced 

A little ceased, but recommenced : 

" Where wert thou when thy father play'd 

In his free field, and pastime made, 320 

A merry boy in sun and shade ? 

"A merry boy they called him then. 
He sat upon the knees of men 
In days that never come again. 

" Before the little ducts began 335 

To feet thy bones with lime, and ran 
Their course, till thou wert also man : 



315. The tempting voice now tacks, and argues future nothingness 
from tlie nothingness anterior to birth. 



THE TWO VOICES. 27 

" Who took a wife, who rear'd his race, 

Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face, 

Whose troubles number with his days : 330 

"A life of nothings, nothing-worth, 
From that first nothing ere his birth 
To that last nothing under earth ! " 

*' These words," I said, " are like the rest, 

No certain clearness, but at best 335 

A vague suspicion of the breast : 

*' But if I grant, thou might'st defend 
The thesis which thy words intend — 
That to begin implies to end ; 

" Yet how should I for certain hold, 340 

Because my memory is so cold. 

That I first was in human mould ? 

*' I cannot make this matter plain, 

But I would shoot, howe'er in vain, 

A random arrow from the brain. 345 

" It may be that no life is found. 
Which only to one engine bound 
Falls off, but cycles always round. 

" As old mythologies relate. 

Some draught of Lethe might await 350 

The slipping thro' from state to state. 

*' As here we find in trances, men 
Forget the dream that happens then, 
Until they fall in trance again. 

" So might we, if our state were such 355 

As one before, remember much, 

For those two likes might meet and touch. 

350. Lethe : forgetfulness, oblivion ; also one of the four rivers of 
the lower world, 

" whereof who drinks. 
Forthwith his former statt^ and being forgets, ^ 
Forgets both joy and grief, i)leasure and pain." 

Milton's Paradise Lost. h.5Si-58Q. 



28 THE TWO VOICES. 

" But, if I lapsed from nobler i)lace, 

Some legend of a fallen race 

Alone might hint of my disgrace ; 360 

" Some vague emotion of delight 

In gazing up an Alpine height, 

Some yearning toward the lamj'S of night. 

" Or if thro' lower lives I came — 

Tho' all experience past became 365 

Consolidate in mind and frame — 

" I might forget my weaker lot; 
For is not our first year forgot? 
The haunts of memory echo not. 

"And men, whose reason long was blind, 370 

From cells of madness unconfined, 
Oft lose whole years of darker mind. 

"Much more, if first I floated free, 

As naked essence, must I be 

Incompetent of memory : 375 

"For memory dealing but with time, 
And he with matter, could she climb 
Beyond her own material prime? 

"Moreover, something is or seems. 

That touches me with mystic gleams, 380' 

Like glimpses of forgotten dreams — 

" Of something felt, like something here: 
Of something done. I know not where ; 
Such as no language may declare." 



374. Naked essence : iincmbndied spirit. 

384. "The present terrestrial life carries within itself the sleeping 
rnejTiory. so to speak, of a higher celestial life whicli has preceded it: 
and our whole process of ktiowinir and feeling on earth may, without 
any stretch of metaphor, be most aptly compared to a'gradnallv 
awakened reminiscence of the divine visions of goodness and truth, and 



THE TWO VOICES. ^9 

The still voice laugh'd. " I talk," said he, 385 
" Not with thy dreams. Suflfico it thee 
Thy pain is a reality." 

"But thou," said I, " hast miss'd thy mark, 

Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark, 

By making all the horizon dark. 390 

" Why not set forth, if I should do 
This rashness, that which might ensue 
With this old soul in organs new? 

"Whatever crazy sorrow saith, 

No life that breathes with human breath 395 

Has ever truly long'd for death. 

*"Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, 
Oh life, not death, for which we pant; 
More life, and fuller, that I want." 

I ceased, and sat as one forlorn. 400 

Then said the voice, in quiet scorn : 
"Behold, it is the Sabbath morn." 

loveliness, which the soul enjoyed when it followed, previous to its fleshly 
encasement, the gods above in their suikt celestial courses." 

Bluckie's Exposition of Plato's doctrine of the Beautifxil. 

" Let who says 
The soul's a clean white paper, rather say 
A palimpsest, a prophet's holograph 
Detiled, erased, and covered by a monk's, 
The Apocalypse by a Longus ! poring on 
Which obscure text he may discern i)erhaps 
Some fair fine trace of what was written once ; 
Some off-stroke of an Alpha and Omega 
Expressing the old Scriptiu-e." 

Mis. Brouining''s Aurora Leigh. 

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting. 
And cometh from afar." 
Wordsivorth's Ode ; Intimations of Irnmortality in Childhood. 
389. Mortal ark : the physical bodv, in which the soul is borne over 
this world's sea. Tennyson uses " mortal ark " again, in this sense in 
In Memoriam, xii. 6 : 

" I leave this mortal ark behind, 
A weight of nerves without a mind." 
3P0. By making all tl»e horizon dark: i.e.. by arguing noth- 
ingness before birth and nothingness after death. Note the be;iuty of 
the whole metaphor. , . . 

402. Beliold, it is tlie Sabbath morn : the voice says this m 
quiet scorn," implying that the Sabbath is a baseless type of a future 



30 THE TWO VOICES. 

And I arose, and I released 

The casement, and the light increased 

With freshness in the dawning east. 405 

Like soften'd airs that blowing steal, 
When meres begin to uncongeal, 
The sweet church bells began to peal. 

On to God's house the people prest: 

Passing the place where each must rest, 410 

Each enter'd like a welcome guest. 

One walk'd between his wife and child, 
With measur'd footfall firm and mild, 
And now and then he gravely smiled. 

The prudent partner of his blood 415 

Lean'd on him, faithful, gentle, good, 
Wearing the rose of womanhood. 

And in their double love secure, 

The little maiden walk'd demure. 

Pacing with downward eyelids pure. 420 

These three made unity so sweet. 
My frozen heart began to beat. 
Remembering its ancient heat. 

I blest them, and they wander'd on: 

I spoke, but answer came there none: 425 

The dull and bitter voice was gone. 



sabbath of the soul, which man vainlv hopes to enjoy. A beautiful 
picture follows of the sabbath mom and of the pious, hopeful worshij)- 
pers.~ "old men, and babes, and lovine; friends, and youths and maidens 
gay," on their way to the village church. 

406. Like soften'd airs : those that just precede and foretell the 
resurrection of the year, in the spriiio:. 

407. Uncon^eai: Note how much more significant this negative 
form is. in this place, than the positive form thaw would be. 

408. Tlie sweet cliurcli bells besan to pen! ' the German 
scholar will be reminded here of that beautiful passage in the Faust of 
Goethe, whore Faust, when abo!it to put the fatal cup to his lips, hears 
the sound of the church bells, and the chant of a chorus ushering in the 
resurrection morn, beginning "Was sucht ihr, miichtig und gelind, Ihr 
Himmelstone, mich am Staube ? " 



THE TWO VOICES. 31 

A second voice was at mine eai-, 

A little whisper silver-clear, 

A murmur, " Be of better cheer." 

As from some blissful neighborhood, 430 

A notice faintly understood, 

" I see the end, and know the good." 

A little hint to solace woe, 

A hint, a whisper breathing low, 

" I may not speak of what I know. ' 435 

Like an ^olian harp that wakes 

No certain air, but overtakes 

Far thought with music that it makes : 

Such seem'd the whisper at my side: 

"What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?" I cried. 440 

*' A hidden hope," the voice replied: 

So heavenly-toned, that in that hour 
From out my sullen heart a power 
Broke, like the rainbow from the shower, 

To feel, altho' no tongue can prove, 445 

That every cloud, that spreads above 
And veileth love, itself is love. 



437. Overtakes : the word here means, not only to come up with, 
in a cour.se, but also to outstrip. The air of the ^olian harp suggests 
heyorid " far thought." 

445. To feel limits or defines power in v. 443. The essence of the 
poem comes out here. All has been drifting to this central idea, namely, 
tliat the power to feel (not the power to tJiink), is the safeguard of faith 
and hope and spiritual health. Faith is not a matter of blind belief, of 
slavish assent and acceptance, as many no-faith peo])leseem lo regard it. 
It is what Wordsworth calls "a passionate intuition," and springs out 
of quickened and refined sentiment, out of inborn instincts which are 
as cultivable as are any other elements of our complex nature, and 
which, too, may l^e blunted bevond a consciousness of their possession. 
And when one in this latter state denies the realilv of faitli, he is not 
unlike one born blind denying the reality of siiihif. " When speaking 
of man in his intellectual capacity, the Scriptures speak not of the un- 
derstanding, but of 'the vtidersfaixlinf/ heart,'— mixkiwg the henrt, that 
is, the great hit iiitive {ov nox\-A\scnv»We) organ, to be the interchangeable 
formula for man in his highest stale of capacity for the infinite." — 
Thomas Be Qaincey's Essays on the Poets (Alexander Pope). 



32 THE TWO VOICES. 

And forth into the fields I went, 
And Nature's living motion lent 
The pulse of hope to discontent. 450 

I wonder'd at the bounteous hours, 
The slow result of winter showers : 
You scarce could see the grass for flowers. 

I wonder'd, while I paced along: 

The woods were fill'd so full with song, 455 

There seem'd no room for sense of wrong. 

So variously seem'd all things wrought, 
I marvell'd how the mind was brought 
To anchor by one gloomy thought ; 

And wherefore rather I made choice 460 

To commune with that barren voice, 
Than him that said, *' Rejoice! rejoice! " 



453. "Ye may no see, for peeping flowers, the gra^se." 

George Peele. 
462. Rejoice ! rejoice ! a reference, perhaps, to Matthew v. 12, 
which immediately follows the Beatitudes. 



A Dream of Fair Women. 



I READ, before my eyelids dropt their shade, 

" The Legend of Good Women,^^ long ago 
Sung by the morning star of song, who made 

His music heard below ; 

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath 5 

Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill 
The spacious times of great Elizabeth 

With sounds that echo still. 

And, for a while, the knowledge of his art 

Held me above the subject, as strong gales 10 

Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho' my heart, 

Brimful of those wild tales, 



2. The Legend of Oood 'Woinen : In modern English this 
should be, The Legends of Good Wo?ne)i, Chaucer's form Legende being 
a plural, the final -e. representing the final -«of the Latin plural Legenda. 
This work was written bj" Chaucer, as stated in the Prologue, to atone 
for the unfavorable characters he had drawn of the female sex in his 
Troilus and Cressida and Romance of the Rose. The women, whose 
virtues and wifely devotion are commemorated in the poem, are Cleo- 
patra, Thisbe, Dido, Hypsipyle, Media, Lucretia, Ariadne, Philomela, 
Phyllis, and Hypermnestra. 

5x Dan Chaucer: i. e., Master Chaucer; Dan, the same as Span- 
ish title, Don. but derived from old French Dans, from Latin Dotnimis; 
a common Middle-English title, spelt also Daiin, usually applied to 
monks, but also prefixed to names of persons of all sorts. Chaucer 
applies it humorously to the name of the fox in the Nun's Priest's Tale, 
"Daun Russell." 

"Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, 
On Time's eternal beadroU worthie to be fj'led." 

Spenser's Faerie Queetie, iv. 2, 32. 
" That old Dan Geftrey, in whose gentle spright. 
The pure well-head of poesie did dwell." 

Faerie Queene, vii. 7, 9. 
6-8. An allusion to the great poets and dramatists of the reigns of 
Elizibeth and James, among whom were Spenser, Marlowe, Sliake- 
speare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Ben Jonsou. 

33 



34 A DEEAM OE FAIR WOMEJS^ 

Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every land 

1 saw, wherever light illumineth, 
Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand 15 

The downward slope to death. 

Those far-renowned brides of ancient song 
Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars, 

And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong, 
And trumpets blown for wars ; 30 

And clattering flints batter'd with clanging hoofs : 
And I saw crowds in column'd sanctuaries ; 

And forms that pass'd at windows and on roofs 
Of marble palaces ; 

Corpses across the threshold ; heroes tall 25 

Dislodging pinnacle and parapet 
Ui)on the tortoise creeping to the wall ; 

Lances in ambush set ; 

And high shrine-doors burst thro' with heated blasts 

That run before the fluttering tongues of fire ; 30 

White surf wind-scatter'd over sails and masts, 
And ever climbing higher ; 

Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates. 
Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes, 

Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates, 35 

And hush'd seraglios. 



21. An onoinatopoetic verse. See Virgil's ^neid, viii. 596. 

2-2. Coluinn'd sanctuaries : Temples to which they had fled for 
safety. 

23. And forms that pass'd, etc.— This verse originally read 
" And forms that screamed,'''' etc. On the change, J. Leicester Warren, 
in his B'M'iography of Teinnjson, Fortniirhtly Rev., II., 399, remarks, 
" This, though a small point, illustrates the ripening of a true poet. His 
miii(li)asses from the turbulent to the quiet, from spasm to repose, 
from the ornate and florid to the simple.'" 

27. Tortoise I I^atin testudo): A shed covered with hides, placed upon 
wheels, to protect the soldiers while approaching the walls of a besieged 
town ; also a body of soldiers with their shields locked over their heads, 
for protection against arrows, darts, etc. See Ctesar's Commentaries, 
lib. II. 6. 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEX. 35 

So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land 
Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way. 

Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand. 
Torn from the fringe of spray. 4q 

I started once, or seem'd to start in pain, 
Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak, 

As when a great thought strikes along the brain, 
And flushes all the cheek. 

And once my arm was lifted to hew down 45 

A cavalier from off his saddle-bow, 
That bore a lady from a leagur'd town ; 

And then, I know not how, 

All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought 
Stream'd onward, lost their edges, and did creep 50 

Roll'd on each other, rounded, smooth 'd, and brought 
Into the gulfs of sleep. 

At last methought that I had wander'd far 
In an old wood : fresh-wash'd in coolest dew. 

The maiden splendors of the morning star 55 

Shook in the stedfast blue. 

Enormous elmtree-boles did stoop and lean 

Upon the dusky brushwood underneath 
Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green. 

New from its silken sheath. (^0 

The dim red morn had died, her journey done, 
And with dead lips smiled at the twilight plain, 

Half-fall'n across the threshold of the sun, 
Never to rise again. 

There was no motion in the dumb dead air, 65 

Not any song of bird or sound of rill ; 
Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre 

Is not so deadly still 

53,54. At Iast....wooa : reminds of the opening lines of the 
inferno: and the " old wood " has a like meaning with Dante's " selva 
oscura. 

61-64.— The metaphor appears to be that. a> she enters the dome of the 
son she is pierced with his arrows and falls dead across the threshold. 



70 



80 



36 A DREAM OF FAIR AYOMEK. 

As that wide forest. Growths of jasmine turn'd 

Their humid arms festooning tree to tree, 
And at the root thro' lush green grasses burn'd 

The red anemone. 

I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I knew 

The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn 
On those long, rank, dark wood-walks drenched in dew, ^5 

Leading from lawn to lawn. 

The smell of violets, hidden in the green, 

Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame 
The times when I remember to have been 

Joyful and free from blame. 

And from within me a clear under-tone 

Thrill'd thro' mine ears in that unblissful clime 

"Pass freely thro' : the wood is all thine own. 
Until the end of time." 

At length I saw a lady within call. 
Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there ; 

A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, 
And most divinely fair. 

Her loveliness with shame and with surprise 
Froze my swift speech: she turning on my face 

The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes, 
Spoke slowly in her place. 

" I had great beauty : ask thou not my name : 

No one can be more wise than destiny. 
Many drew swords and died. Where'er I came 95 

I brought calamity." 



85 



90 



•luscious.'" 



71 Lush: ^eg Skeat's Etymological Dictionary, under 
78^80. Pour'd Ijack, etc. 

" bring back the hour 
Of splendor in the grass; of glory intlie flower 

Wordsworth's Ode on Immortality. 
85 A lady : Helena, wife of Menelaus, celebrated for >^^r Jeairty ; 
her abduction by Paris, son of Priam, gave rise to the Trojan >var, 
which is alluded to in v. 95, "Many drew swords and died. 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 8? 

"No marvel, sovereign lady : in fair field 

Myself for such a face had boldly died," 
I answer'd free : and turning I appealed 

To one that stood beside. 100 

But she, with sick and scornful looks averse, 
To her full height her stately stature draws ; 

" My youth," she said, " was blasted with a curse : 
This woman was the cause. 

** I was cut off from hope in that sad place, 105 

Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears : 

My father held his hand upon his face ; 
I, blinded with my tears, 

" Still strove to speak : my voice was thick with sighs 
As in a dream. Dimly I could descry 110 

The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes. 
Waiting to see me die. 

*' The high masts flickered as they lay afloat ; 

The crowds, the temples, waver'd, and the shore ; 
The bright death quiver'd at the victim's throat ; 115 

Touch'd ; and I knew no more." 



97. In fair field : in open combat ; in free fight. 

100. To one that stood beside : Iphigenia, dauiihterof Agamem- 
non. It might be wrongly inferred from vv. 115, 116, that she was 
actually sacrificed ; but the story is, that she was rescued at the last mo- 
ment, by Diana (Artemis), and borne in a cloud to Tauris, where she 
became "a priestess of the goddess. >S'te Classical Dictionary. 

101. Averse : turned away ; averted. 
104. Xliis woman : Helena. 

10.5. Ti»at sad place : Aulis. 

113-116. In the editions of 1833 and 1842, this stanza read : 
" The tall m^sts quivered as they lay afloat. 
The temples and the people and the shore. 
One drew a sharp knife thro' my tender throat 
Slowly,— and nothing more." 
" The brilliant metonomy of ' bright death ' vivifies the tamer ' Sharp 
knife' with the electric toiich of genius." ,/. Leicester War?et), the Bib 
lioqraphy of Teiniysov, Fortniqlitly Rev., IT., p. 399. 

Lockhart. in hi'^ review of' Tennyson, in the Qiiarlerly, qnotes the 
stanza as it originally stood, and adds, "What touching simplicity! 
What genuine ])athos'! He cut my ttuoaf—notfimq mote! One might 
indeed tlsk-What more she woulil have." 'J'his facetious criticism, it 
is supposed, led the poet to make the change in the edition of 1860. But 
lie no doubt made it to conform to the classical story. As it now 
stands,, it does not necessarily mean that Iphigenia was actually sacri- 
fice!, as the original reading does. 



38 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 

Whereto the other with a downward brow : 
" I would the white cold heavy-phmging foam, 

Whirl'd by the wind, had roll'd me deep below, 
Then when I left my home." 120 

Her slow full words sank thro' the silence drear, 

As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea : 
Sudden 1 heard a voice that cried, " Come here. 

That I may look on thee." 

I tr.rning saw, throned on a flowery rise, 125 

One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll'd ; 
A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes, 

Brow-bound with burning gold. 

She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began : 

" I govern'd men by change, and so 1 sway'd 130 

All moods. 'Tis long since I have seen a man. 

Once, like the moon, I made 

"The ever-shifting currents of the blood 

According to my humor ebb and flow. 
I have no men to govern in this wood : 135 

That makes my only woe. 

"Nay — yet it chafes me that I could not bend 
One will ; nor tame and tutor with mine eye 
That dull cold blooded Caesar. Prythee, friend, 
. Where is Mark Antony? 140 



117. TlieoUier: Helena 

125. FloAvei-y rise : a rising ground covered with flowers. 
127. A (|iteeu: Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. J. S. S., in Notes and 
Queries, 4th 8., vol. 10, p. 499, asks "How is Tennyson's description of 
Cleopatra, 'A Queen with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes,' to be 
reconciled with the fact that she w^as a GreeK, the dauirhterof Ptolemy 
Auletes and a lady of Pontus, therefore of pure Greek Blood ^—See Dio., 
42, 34." 
132-134. Once, like the moon, etc.: 

" You are the powerful moon of my blood's sea, 
To make it ebb or flow into my face 
As your looks change ■" 

Ford (unl Decker's Witch of Erlmonton. 
130. That dull cold-ljlooded Cuesar: the reference is not to 
Cains Julius, but to Octavius Ciesar, whose love, after the death of 
Mark Antony, she tried to <xain, but he was proof against her charms. 



A DEEAM OF FAIR WOMEK. oU 

'' The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime 

On Fortune's neck : we sat as God by God : 
The Nilus would have risen before his time 

And flooded at our nod. 

" We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit 145 

Lamps which outburn'd Canopus. my life 

In Egypt ! the dalliance and the wit, 
The flattery and the strife, 

"And the wild kiss, when fresh from war's alarms, 
My Hercules, my Roman Antony, 150 

My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms, 
Contented there to die ! 

"And there he died : and when I heard my name 
Sigh'd forth with life I would not brook my fear 

Of the other : with a worm I balk'd his fame. • 155 

What else was left ? look here ! " 

(With that she tore her robe apart, and half 

The polished argent of her breast to sight 
Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh, 

Showing the aspick's bite) 160 

" I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found 

Me lying dead, my crown about my brows, 
A name forever ! — lying robed and crown'd, 

Worthy a Roman spouse." 

141. 'With whom I rode siihliiiie : 

'■ He on the wings of cherub rode sublime." 

M'd/o/i'''S Paradise Lost, vi. 7?']. 
" Nor second He, that rode sublime 
Upon the seraph winys of Ecstacy." 

Graifs Progress of Poesy, v. 95. 

145. The Libyan Sun : used for the we.stern sun", Lybia lying 
west of E<rypt. 

146. Canopus : the brightest star in the constellation Argo, or Argo 
Navis, in the Southern hemisphere. 

" terris non omnibus omnia signa 

Conspicimus: nusquam inveiiies fulgere Canopnm 
Donee Niliacas per pontuui veneris oras." 

M. Mainlil As/ro/iomicoii, lib. l,v. 214. 
Vitrivius says that fo those sailing from Greece, it first becomes visi- 
ble at the island of Rhodes. 
1.54. Brook: bear, endure. 
1.5.5. The-other : Octavius C;esar. 
156. What else was lef. I i. c. to do. 



40 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEK. 

Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range 165 

Struck by all passion did fall down and glance 

From tone to tone, and glided thro' all change 
Of liveliest utterance. 

When she made pause I knew not for delight ; 

Because with sudden motion from the ground 170 

She raised her piercing orbs, and fiU'd with light 

The interval of sound. 

Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts ; 

As once they drew into two burning rings 
All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts 175 

Of captains and of kings. 

Slowly ray sense undazzled. Then I heard 
A noise of some one coming thro' the lawn, 

And singing clearer than the crested bird, 
That claps his wings at dawn. 180 

*' The torrent brooks of hallow'd Israel 
From craggy hollows pounng, late and soon, 

Sound all night long, in falling thro' the dell, 
Far-heard beneath the moon. 

" The balmy moon of blessed Israel 185 

Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine : 

All night the splinter'd crags that wall the dell 
With spires of silver shine:" 

As one that museth where broad sunshine laves 

The lawn by some cathedral, thro* the door 190 

Hearing the holy organ rolling waves 
Of sound on roof and floor 

Within, and anthem sung, is charm'd and tied 
To where he stands, — so stood I, when that flow 

Of music left the Jips of her that died 195 

To save her father's vow ; 

166. Did fall doivn : " did " is weak here. 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 41 

The daughter of the warrior Gileadite, 

A maiden pure ; as when she went along 
From Mizpeh's tower'd gate with welcome light, 

With timbrel and with song. 200 

My words leapt forth : ''Heaven heads the count of 
crimes 

With that wild oath." She render'd answer liigh : 
"Not so, nor once alone ; a thousand times 

I would be born and die. 

' ' Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root 205 

Creeps to the garden water-pipes beneath, 
Feeding the flower ; but ere my flower to fruit 

Changed, I was ripe for death. 

"My God, my land, my father — these did move 
Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave, 210 

Lower'd softly with a threefold cord of love 
Down to a silent grave. 

" And I went mourning, ' No fair Hebrew boy 
Shall smile away my maiden blame among 

The Hebrew mothers' — emptied of all joy, 215 

Leaving the dance and song. 

"Leaving the olive-gardens far below, 

Leaving the promise of my bridal bower. 
The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow 

Beneath the battled tower. 220 

" The light white cloud swam over us. Anon 

We heard the lion roaring from his den ; 
We saw the large white stars rise one by one. 

Or, from the darken'd glen, 



197. The Daiijjliter of tlie w^arrior Gileadite : the 

daughter of Jephthah. See Judges xi. 29-40. 

202. Tliat. wild oath : the oath or vow of Jt'phthah, Judges xi. 
31 ; ■wild, rash, crazy. 



42 A DEEAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 

*' Saw God divide the night with flying flame, 225 

And thunder on the everlasting hills. 
I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became 

A solemn scorn of ills. 

" When the next moon was roll'd into the sky, 
Strength came to me that equall'd my desire. 230 

How beautiful a thing it was to die 
For God and for my sire ! 

" It comforts me in this one thought to dwell. 

That I subdued me to my father's will ; 
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell, 235 

Sweetens the spirit still. 

"Moreover it is written that my race 

Hew'd Aramon, hip and thigh, from Aroer 
On Arnon unto Minneth." Here her face 

Glow'd as I look'd at her. 240 

She lock'd her lips : she left me where I stood : 

" Glory to God," she sang, and past afar, 
Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood. 

Toward the morning star. 

Losing her carol I stood pensively, 245 

As one that from a casement leans his head, 

When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly. 
And the old year is dead. 

"Alas ! alas !" a low voice, fuU of care, 

Murmur'd beside me : " Turn and look on me : 250 

I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair. 

If what 1 was I be. 

"Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor ! 

me, that I should ever see the light ! 
Those dragon eyes of anger'd Eleanor 255 

Do hunt me, day and night." 

238, 239. Hew'd Ammon, etc.: Judges xi. 32, 33. 

251. Kosnmond: dan<;hter of Walter, Lord Clifford, and mistress 
of Henry II. of England, by whose wife, Queen Eleanor, t^he was 
poisoned, 1177. 

855. Eleanor.— /Slee note on 251. 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEIS^. 43 

She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust : 
To whom the Egyptian : " 0, you tamely died ! 

You should have clung to Fulvia's waist, and thrust 
The dagger thro' her side." 260 

With that sharp sound the white dawn's creeping 
beams, 

Stol'n to my brain, dissolved the mystery 
Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams 

Ruled in the eastern sky. 

Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark, 265 

Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance 

Her murder'd father's head, or Joan of Arc, 
A light of ancient France ; 

Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death 

Who kneeling, with one arm about her king, 270 

Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath, 
Sweet as new buds in Spring. 



259. Fulvia : the wife of Mark Anlony ; Cleopatra uses the name 
by metonoiny for Eleanor, Rosamond having sustained the rehxtion to 
Eleanor's husband which Cleopatra did to Fulvia's. 

263. The captain olniy dreams : i. e., the sun. 

266. Her -wlio clasp'd: Margaret Roper, the daughter of Sir 
Thomas More. 

"The love ef Margaret Roper continued to display itself in those 
outwardly unavailing tokens of tenderness to his remains, by which 
affection seeks to perpetuate Itself ; ineffectually, indeed, for the object, 
but very effectually for softening' the heart and exalting the soul. She 
procured his head to be taken down from London Bridge, wht re more 
odious passions had struggled in pursuit of a species of infernal im- 
mortality by placing it. She kept it during her life as a relic, and was 
buried with that object of fondness in her arms, nine years after she 
was separated from her father. Erasmus called her the orna- 
ment of Britain [Brittaniae suae deciis] and the flower of the learned 
matrons of England, at a time when education consisted only of the 
revived study of ancient learning."— ^Sir James 3facki/itodt's History of 
England, London, 1838, vol. 2, p. 185. 

See. art. in Notes and Queries, 6th S., vol. 2, p. 470, in which extracts 
are given from J. Hodde>don's History of Sir Thmias More, etc. 

269. Or lier. etc. : Eleanor, daughter of King Alfonso, of Castile, 
and Queen of Edward I. (Longsh.inks), of England. 

"Eleanor accompanied her husband in the expedition conducted by 
him in 1269 to the Holy Land ; and while there, she is said to have 
saved his life by an act of devoted love, which a writer of her own 
nation has recorded. Edward's prowess in the firld had made him the 
terror of the Saracens, and a Mahometan fanatic resolved to rid his 
countrymen of the Christian champion by assassination. Pretending 
to be a messenger, he obtained access to the prince's private tent, ana 



44 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN". 

No memory labours longer from .the deep 
Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore - 

That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep 275 

To gather and tell o'er 

Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain 
Compass'd, how eagerly I sought to striiie 

Into that wondrous tracl^ of dreams again ! 
But no two dreams are like. 280 

As when a soul laments, which hath been blest, 

Desiring what is mingled with past years, 
In yearnings that can never be exprest 

By signs or groans or tears ; 

Because all words, tho' culPd with choicest art, 285 

Failing to give the bitter of the sweet, 
Wither beneath the palate, and the heart 

Faints, faded by its heat. 



wounded him iii the arm with a dajjger, which was believed to be poison- 
ed. Edward liurled him to tlie ground, and struck him dead with a 
chair which he caught up ; but there was cause to dread that, thougli 
the wound given by tlie dagger was slight, the prison might spread 
fatally through the frame, and Eleanor instantly applies her lips to the 
injured arm and sucked the blood until the surgeons were in readiness 
and pared away the sides of the wound."— iTiss/ory of England by Sir 
Edioard S. Cr'easy. London, 1869. 8vo., vol. 1., p. 378. 



Jh GUAGE LESSONS-GRAMMAR-COMPOSITION. 
A. Complete Course in Two Books Only. 



RADED LESSONS IN ENGLISH, 

144 P(ig^, 16mo, Bound in Cloth. 

HER LESSONS IN ENGLISH, 

2$8 Pages, Idmo. Bound in Cloth. 



JLVE POINTS WHJJEEIN WE CLAIM THESE WOEi:s TO EXCEL. 

Ian.— The science of the language is made tributary to the a-t of expression. 

'principle is flxed in memory and in practice, by an exhaus\ive drill in corn- 
sentences, arranging and rea,rranging their parts, contract mg, expanding, 
atiug, and criticising them. There is thus given a complete course in iech- 

grammar and composition, more thorough and attractive than f each subject 
. treated separately. 

Grauimar and Composition taught together.— We claim thtt grammar 
Ujomposition can be better and more economically taught together than sepa- 

' ; that each helps the other and furnishes the occasion to teach tne other ; and 

>oth can be taught together in the time that would be required for either alone. 

": Complete Course in Grammar and Compositionrin only two Books. 

two books completely cover the ground of grammar and composition, from 

ae the scholar usually begins the study imtii it is finished in the High School or 

%«/i'od.— The author's method in teaching in these books is as follows : (1) The 
'pies are presented inductively in the "Hints for Oral Instruction." (2) This 
iction is carefully gathered up in brief definitions for the pupil to memorize, 
f ariety of exercises in analysis, parsing, and composition is given, which im- 
the principles on the mind of the scholar and compel him to understand them. 
[uthor8—I*ractieal Teachers .-^The books were prepared by men who have 
a life-work of teaching grammar and composition, and both of them occupy 
)ositions in their profession. ^ m j i.-u 

rading.—lHo pains have been spared in grading the books so as to afford the 
'possible difficulty to the young student. This ia very important and could 
elv be accomplished by any who are not practical teachers. , . . , , 

efinitions.—The definitions, principles, and rules-are stated m the same lan- 
I in both books, and cannot be excelled. . . . , ^ _ii- 

lodels for Parsing.— TlnQ models for parsing are simple, ongmal and worthy 
reful attention. , , , .... -l t _* 

ystem of Diagrams.— The system of diagrams, although it f orms no vitalpart 
5 works, is the best extant. The advantage of the use of diagranis is : (1) ihey 
iit the analysis to the eye. (2) They are stimulating and helpful to the pupil in 
feparation of his lessons. (3) Tliey enable the teacher to examine the work of 
iu about the time he could examine one pupU, if the oral method alone were 

entences for .4naf7/«r«.— The sentences for analysis have been selected with 

>care and are of unusual excellence. * ^ t.: „ „„^ 

uestions and Itevieufs.— Inhere is a more thorough system of questions and 

[vs than in any other works of the kind. _ ^ • \f ^^„ «„ 

heapness.-^ln introducing these books, there is a great savmg of moneyj as 
dees for first mtroduction, and for subsequent use, are very low. 

CLARK & MAYNARD, Pul)lisliers, 

754 Broadway, If, T* 



11 



English Classics, 



CLASSES IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. READING, GRAMMAR. ET: 
Edited bt Eminent Engush and Amekican Scholars. 

Each Volume contains a Sketch of the Author's lAfe, Prefatory arid 
Explanatory Notes, etc., etc. 

'B.oee'a Queen's Walce. 



1 Byron's Prophecy of Dante. (Cantos 

I. and II.) 
a Milton's L' Allegro and IlPenseroso. 
8 Lord Bacon's Essays, Civil and 

Moral. (Selected.) 

4 Byron's Prisoner of Chlllon, 

5 Moore's Fire- Worshippers. (Lalla 

Kookh. Selected from Parts I. and II.) 

6 Ooldsmlth's Deserted Vllla«e. 

7 Scott's M a r m i o n. Selections ftom 

Canto VI.) 

8 Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel* 

(Introduction and Canto I.) 

9 Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night, and 

Other Poems. 

10 Crabbe's The VUlage. 

11 Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. 

(Abridsment of Part I.) 

12 Maeaulay's Essay on Bunyan's Pil- 

grim's Proerees. 
18 Maeaulay's Armada, and Other 
Poems. 

14 Shakespeare's Merchant of Teiilee. 

(Selections from Acts I., III. and IV.) 

15 Ctoldsmlth's TraveUer. 



16 

IT Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. 

18 Addison's Sir liogcr de Coverley, 

19 Gray's Elegy In a Country Chureb 

yard, 

80 Scott's Lady of the r.ate. (Canto I| 

81 Shakespeare's As You Like It, et^ 

(Selections.) 

OJ2 CI1.„1....— .n.„>^*. 17-«__ X^IL— __JI ^B*- 



Shakespeare's dng John and 1 

Richard II. (Selectlous.) 

28 Shakespeare's King Henry E? 

King Henry V., King Henry t: 

(Selections.) 

84 Shakespeare's Henry Tin., 

Julius Caesar. (Selections > 

85 "Wordsworth's Excursion. (Book ] 

86 Pope's Essay on Criticism. 

87 Spenser's Faerie Queene. (Cantos 

and II.) 

88 Cowper's Task. (BookL) 

89 MiltonN Comus. 

80 Tennyson's Enoch Arden. 

81 Irving's Sketch Book. (Selectioiu.) 
88 Dickens' Christmas Carol. (Co 

densed.) 



Others In Preparation. 



Paradise liost. (Book I.) Containing Sketch of Milton's Life— Essay of 
tlie Genius of Milton— Epitome of the Views of the Best-Knowu Critics on Miltoal 
and full Explanatory Notes. Cloth, flexible, 94 pages. 

The Shalcespeare Reader. Being Extracts from the Plays of Shakei?' 
peare, with Introductory Paragraphs ana Notes, Grammatical, Historical and 
Explanatory. By C. H. Wtkes. 160 pp., l6mo, cloth, flexible. 

Tlie Canterbury Tales— The Prologue of Geoffrey Chancer. The Tesj 
Collated with the Seven Oldest MSS., and a Life of the Author. Introductorj 
Notices, Grammar, Critical and Explanatory Notes, and Index to Obsolete ang 
Diflicult Words. B^ E. F. Willouuhbt, M.D. 112 pp., l6mo, cloth, flexible. \ 

An Essay on Man. By Alexander Popjj. JWith. Clarke's Grammaticaj 
Kotes, 73 pp., cloth, flexible. " " " 



Slialcespeare's Plays —(ScflRM Editiofes).'^ IMSftCHAITP^y^ENiCETfrTTiiiTn 
C^SAE, King Lkar, Macbeth, Hamlet, Tempest. With Notes, Examinatii-I 
Papers and Plan of Preparation (Selectedl^ By Huainekd Kellogg. A.M., Prq 
fessor of the Enolish Language and Literature in the Brooklyn Collegiate an* 
Polytechnic Institute, and author of "A Test-Book on Rhetoric," " A Text-BO(M 
on English Literature." and one of the authors of Reed & Kellogg's "Graded Leesoiii 
in Euglish," and " Higher Lessons in English." 32mo, flexible, cloth. 

The text of these pluvs of Shakespeare has been adapted for use in mixed classes, by th- 
omission of evorrthinc th.it would be considered offensive. The notes have been especial] 
srj!ocf"r t" Rif^etthi' rr^iiiiroTnent'^of School and College students, from editions edited :^ 
eminent F.nL'lisli si-hnlar^. We are confident that teachers who examine these editions T. H 
pion<iiiiier (iiem better attapted to ti.c v.-;uits, hoih of the teacher and student, than any otrifl 
\ editions published. Prinicl from lar^e type, bound in a very attractive cloth binding, aii 
^ sold at nearly one-half the price of otL.er School Editions of Shakespeare. ; 






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_ N. MANCHESTER, 

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